If we had to go on Bryan's solo stuff. I would put the above named, as his best. The title track? Awesome. It was, and should have been, the 6th Roxy Music album. They are all there, bar Andy.

Ferry's vocal, Sped's chainsaw guitar, T.G.P.T labouring away in the background, as if he is desperate to get to the end, but hangs in. And the lyrics, what a wordsmith Ferry is. Then there is Party Doll, then love me madly. The string section at the end is neat. Fantastic album.

Pleasant laughter and the memories of troubles you have seen, it is written, In You Mind.

I've always had a soft spot for this album too. I think I read somewhere that BF views it as his least favourite, though...

It coincided with his first major solo tour and the video & audio bootlegs are worth seeking out, notwithstanding the relative limitations of amateur recordings from that era.

Sorry Gerry, I have a soft spot for the album too but Party Doll is an insipid, lightweight, song in my opinion, alongside All Night Operator, I just find them vacuous and can't picture them as Roxy material.

Love Me Madly and Rock of Ages are my faves from IYM; I could see the latter on Siren, it's in similar vein to End of the Line (and I think has a Xmas feel and should have been a Xmas single).

My favorite Ferry solo album. With the exception of Tokyo Joe, I adore every song and I especially like Party Doll and NEVER considered it insipid in the least.

I think as a whole the album has some of Ferry's best lyrics:

In Party Doll:

"Without you I can´t go on
Now the way i´m figurin´
You´ll be leda
And i´ll be swann... " referncing Greek myths and Proust in a witty pun.


Rock of Ages:

"Once again
You´re the song
I´m the one
Who turns the pages" A great metaphor for love with a slightly sinister feel of control.

Yet despite the great songs, the thing that always brings me back to the record are Ann O'Dell's brilliant orchestrations. She was a sublime arranger as her work on Japan's Quiet Life attests.

In Your Mind, Love Me Madly Again and This Is Tomorrow are among the best songs Ferry ever wrote. I recall that the record was panned when it came out, but for me it has become richer with repeated listenings.

Although I knew some of the stuff from "Street Life" onwards I only really got into Ferry/Roxy around the time of "Siren" and as that was followed by the hiatus and the Ferry cover versions in 1976 "In Your Mind" was the first album of original Ferry songs that I actually went out and bought.

"Love Me Madly Again" remains one of my favourite things that Bryan has ever done - and yes the Ann O'Dell string arrangements contribute a huge amount to the song. The fact that it was resurrected for the "Dylanesque" tour surely indicates that, even if he doesn't rate the album as a whole, this song must have some appeal for Bryan. Likewise "Tokyo Joe"'s surprise return on the "Frantic" tour. Now maybe "This Is Tomorrow" and "In Your Mind" itself could also be ripe for re-assessment???

If my memory serves me right this album saw the parting of the ways with Chris Thomas as producer. The Buckley book describes a huge bust-up and Ferry finishing the production with Steve Nye. Thomas took his wall-of-Spedding guitar sound to the Pistols and Ferry/Roxy subsequently turned to the smoother sounds of Rhett Davies.

I seem to recall Nick De Ville noting (in his talk about Roxy art at the O2 a couple of years ago) that IYM was the first Ferry solo album to feature his own compositions exclusively.

I think there was a veiled inference that these songs could have been Roxy ones if BF had wanted them to be and that it might have deferred the reunion. Or maybe I was reading too much into it!

I think there's perhaps a closer link between Siren & this album than I first realised; a lot of diehards see the former as the beginning of a more diluted Roxy sound.

Back in '78 I remember getting back to my studio apartment after work and dropping the needle down on "Party Doll" and listening to the last three songs on side two a good two or three times every night. A great grouping of songs. I also like Love Me Madly but the rest of the tunes on IYM are simply OK, not great.

The lyrics to the song IYM rank as some of BF's best...

If memory serves me right the reason that Chris Thomas didn't finish IYM was due to him being unavailable when recording was finished off after Ferry contracted glandular fever during the recording of the album.The IYM tour was also delayed from autumn '76 to the spring of '77. Thomas was on board for the Roxy sessions in 2005 and it's a shame he hasn't done more work with Ferry although it might be because Thomas produces records rather than pander to the artist.